Greg, what surprises me is that our personal experiences with SB are such polar opposites. Let's just agree to disagree. A truce?
"The fact you needed a new worm on a brand new mount is also part of the info". I'm happy to add to that info.
I was fortunate to purchase a lovely and lightly used MX from IIS member Pmrid. I understand that he received the mount around August 2011, being one of the first to hit Australian shores (MX mount no. 6). The mount is now 14 months old so she's not new.
After measuring PE with both Pempro2 and CCDSoft my raw PE was high 6's to 7's - pushing the limits of the guaranteed
'maximum seven (7) arcsecond peak-to-peak periodic error before periodic error correction. When periodic error correction is applied, the resulting peak-to-peak periodic error should be approximately one (1) arcsecond or less'.
SB decided to replace my worm block, free of charge, and provided a few other replacement bits and pieces (pulleys, belts etc). They shipped the 3lbs of metal + goodies half way around the world via UPS expedited shipping - not cheap - and they also paid for the return shipping of the old block back to Colorado. Impressive. Pics attached.
The replacement worm block produces a raw PE of
+1.7/-1.8 (3.5 peak to peak). Details attached. Suffice to say I'm very pleased. With PEC applied my tracking will be limited by seeing only. Happy days.
